The temperature of the room dropped fast. Ice formed on the curtains and crusted thickly around the lights in the ceiling.
The glowing filaments in each bulb shrank and dimmed, while the candles that sprang from every available surface like a colony of toadstools had their wicks snuffed out.
The darkened room filled with a yellow, choking cloud of brimstone, in which indistinct black shadows writhed and roiled.
From far away came the sound of many voices screaming.
Pressure was suddenly applied to the door that led to the landing.
It bulged inward, the timbers groaning.
Footsteps from invisible feet came pattering across the floorboards and invisible mouths whispered wicked things from behind the bed and under the desk.
The sulfur cloud contracted into a thick column of smoke that vomited forth thin tendrils; they licked the air like tongues before withdrawing.
The column hung above the middle of the pentacle, bubbling ever upward against the ceiling like the cloud of an erupting volcano.
There was a barely perceptible pause. Then two yellow staring eyes materialized in the heart of the smoke.
Hey, it was his first time. I wanted to scare him.
